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Title: Railroad Yard Operational Plan 1. Introduction

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Title: Railroad Yard Operational Plan 1. Introduction Title: Railroad Yard Operational Plan 1. Introduction In railroad freight transportation, shipments are consolidated to benefit from economies of scale in core transportation costs. Railroad classification yards, also called marshaling or shunting yards, play an important role as consolidation nodes in rail freight transport networks. At classification yards, inbound trains are disassembled or humped; the railcars are uncoupled on the hump and roll onto the classification tracks by gravity. The railcars are then assembled in the forwarding yard (or departure area) area to generate the desired outbound trains via a system of tracks and switches. Through this procedure, railcars can be routed through the network in blocks in such a way that every origin-destination (OD) pair can be served avoiding a large number of end-to-end connections. Typically, railroad classification yards are classified into three yard types: hump yards, flat yards and gravity yards. A typical hump yard layout is shown in Figure 1. Receiving Area Hump Classification Area Departure Area Figure 1. Layout of a typical classification yard The yard compound can be generally divided into three main areas, each of which consists of a set of parallel tracks: the Receiving Area where inbound railcars arrive, the Classification Area where railcars are rearranged and the Departure Area where sorted railcars wait until they are departed from the yard. Railcars are brought to the receiving area by inbound trains and pass through the yard from the receiving area to the departure area where they are fetched by outbound trains. Humps make use of the gravitational pulling force between the receiving area and the classification area so that railcars can be rearranged without relying on (classification) engines. The classification area is often connected to the receiving area by one or more hump lead tracks; this allows for a repeated classification (re-hump) of railcars. The car storage capacities of these areas are mainly determined by the number of available tracks and their length. Due to limited space and scarcity of other resources, yards are physically capacitated in terms of (a) the number of cars that can be classified, (b) the number of blocks that can be made in a given time period, (c) the number of trains that can be received in a given time period, (d) the number of trains that can be dispatched in a given time period, and (e) the average dwell time. The main functions of a classification yard include (a) receiving railcars, (b) sorting of railcars into different groups, (c) storing railcars until their corresponding train departure time, and (d) building of outbound trains. The two main processes at each end of the yard compound can be described as follows: Inbound trains enter the receiving area (on the left in Figure 1) and wait for sorting. Since only one bunch or “string” of railcars can be sorted at a time, the receiving area needs to ensure sufficient storage space for the trains that arrive later. When a train is ready for sorting or classification, it is pushed out of the receiving area through the hump. Each railcar or block of an inbound train is made to run into the classification track to which it is assigned. 1 Typically, the classification tracks in the classification area are already occupied by existing railcars. As a result, the railcars will couple automatically with the existing cars on the corresponding track when pushed onto a track. Outbound trains leave the yard from the departure area (on the right in Figure 1). Engines pull strings of railcars from the departure end of the classification tracks to their designated tracks in the departure area. The railcars or “blocks” are assembled in accordance with the sequence of the railcar’s destination station to make up the outbound trains. During the classification process of a particular train, its railcars could be redistributed over several of the classification tracks, each corresponding to its designated destination stations or directions. The assignment (positioning) of railcars to (on) classification tracks is determined by multiple factors; among these, the designated outbound block for the railcar is the major determinant. Typically, each outbound block is assigned to a classification track. The positioning and movement of railcars on classification tracks synchronize the two main processes at each end of the classification area as both the sorting process and the train building process are carried on in a fairly continuous manner at the receiving end and at the departure end of the classification tracks, respectively. 2. Problem Statement a. Overview Optimizing operational plans of a classification yard is very important for a railroad company as it helps fully utilize the limited resources of its rail network. Typical yard planning performance measures for a yard can be: the number of inbound/outbound trains received/assembled, the number of blocks made, the number of cars handled, or the expected time in system per railcar. Earlier research has focused on minimizing the total waiting time of railcars at the yard. Please see references by Lin and Cheng (2009, 2011) for a list of performance measures definitions. To improve the overall yard throughput, an optimized yard operation plan is highly desirable. However, building a classification yard operation plan is challenging as it covers many interrelated operations and decisions, such as, the sequence of inbound trains’ disassembly, the sequence of outbound trains’ assembly, sorting plans at the hump, block-to-train assignment plan for classification tracks, etc. Essentially, given arrival times of the inbound trains, this problem aims to find the humping schedule and the departure times of the outbound trains subject to the different operational constraints in the yard. The goal is to minimize the total waiting time of railcars in the yard and maximize the total number of railcar processed during a certain period. Yard Capacity Optimization Number of Number of Outbound Inbound Trains, Trains and Their Train Design and Their Arrival Yard Operation Departure Time Problem Times Problem Operational Constraints, Resources and Business Rules Figure 2. Yard Operational Plan Optimization 2 b. Problem Input, Output and Assumption The overarching goal is to determine an optimized plan of a typical hump yard, supposing that the following information is known: 1. Yard infrastructure List of receiving tracks and their capacity in term of number of cars List of classification tracks and their capacity in term of number of cars List of departure tracks and their capacity in terms of number of cars 2. Resources: Number of hump engines Number of pullback engines 3. Operational parameters Humping rate (e.g. 2.3 cars per min) Minimum humping interval (e.g. 10 min between consecutive humping activities) Technical inspection time for an inbound or outbound train Expected time to perform a single track pull for each pullback engine (e.g. 10 min) Expected time for each pullback engine to perform a multi-track pull (e.g. 15 min for each additional track) 4. Operational constraints: Minimum and maximum train size for outbound trains Minimum inter-departure times for outbound trains Business rules associated with the order of cars in classification yard 5. Outbound train pattern: List of potential outbound trains Feasible outbound block combinations Given the above input, participants need to determine: 1. The arrival track for each inbound train. 2. When to start humping each arrival track. 3. Block-to-track assignments over time. 4. When to pullback blocks to the departure tracks. 5. Decide what the outbound train plan should be – departure times and contents of outbound trains. In order to develop appropriate quantitative-based analytical solution approaches, we make some simplifying assumptions as follows: 1. No railcars are disallowed to move through the hump. 2. An entire track gets humped. That is, no partial track humping is allowed. 3. The sizes and shapes of all railcars are the same. 4. There is only one hump engine working on the hump. 5. A pullback engine is used to assemble the blocks or railcars from the hump into the assigned track. The assembly time is proportional to the number of connections, which is one less than the number of blocks or railcars. 3 6. Typically, the number of railcars assembled in a train is required to be within a certain range. For example, a typical outbound train has between 30 and 40 cars. An exception to this rule is “local trains” which only run within adjacent districts. 7. The total time to disassemble an inbound train includes The total time to disassemble an inbound train includes the time required to move a railcar from the receiving area, over the hump and then to the classification area, and an engine running from the hump to the inbound train track in the receiving area. 8. The overall time of assembling an outbound train includes the time required to assemble an engine running from the departure area to the classification tracks in the classification area. 9. A range of technical inspections are required for inbound trains (following the arrival of the trains) at the receiving area and for outbound trains (preceding the departure) at the departure area. Typically, the time for technical inspections is proportional to the number of railcars being processed and the time per railcar on the receiving area is shorter than that on the departure area. For simplicity, we assume a constant inspection time duration for both areas. 10. Pullback engines need extra time to run from one track to another when the railcars or blocks stored on different classification tracks are to be assembled into the same outbound train. There are sufficiently many outbound engines to satisfy the requirements of outbound train departure. 11.
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